Wintertime

When people told me winter in bulgaria was extremely cold, i'm not sure what I expected. January is freezing and some areas are having awful conditions. We are being very lucky so far. The horses are safe and warm in their stables and the chickens have been moved indoors. But so far apart from our food freezing we have had no major problems and lots of time to ski.
Our thoughts are with the families in the flooded area of bulgaria and hope they recieve aid soon

Snow!!

 No riding to be done at the momment because the ground is too slippery, but the dogs are having a fantastic time. they have been out destrying snowmen and chasing snowballs. Shadow is very keen on tunnelling through piles of snow. All construction on the stables has stopped for the week and were having lots of fun sledging and skiing.

naughty youngsters and lovely neighbours

Yesterday was a very trying day. Lolly decided that he didn't want to work on his cart. He helpfully stood while i connected his cart to the harness then kicked the cart till it came off again. After an hour and seven goes at kicking off the cart! I was getting really fed up, until two of our lovely neighbours came to the rescue and helped me get him attached and moving before he started again. We spent a couple ofhours taking him over the common ground near the stables before letting him have a well deserved rest. Without my knights in shining armour I think i would have been there all day. So thanks, you know who you are.

Mud glorious Mud!

I can't believe how much rain we've had in the last coule of days. That plus the melting snow has turned the yard into a muddy swamp. The horses closely resemble the creatures from the black lagoon, but their having fun rolling around.
DIY this week is all for my daughter Cat's benefit. It's her birthday on friday and as a present she wants some chickens. But as with all pets belonging to her a normal home will not do. So now we're converting the old grain store into chicken palace; to be painted yellow, with a rainbow and flowers. The chickens will have a house each, a dust bath and a climbing frame, because we don't want them to get bored when they can't go out.
Following that i need to build a en for the dogs when there outside because our collie gem keeps trying to round up the horses and their going to kick him eventually.

we've arrived!!!

Can't believe I haven't written anything in so long but I guess moving takes up more time than you think. We've been in Bulgaria about two months now and the horses are finally starting to settle in. We've had a lot of problems with the two mares, elle and angel. They're both pregnant and very unsettled; especially at all the farm animals wandering around the village. None of the horses took to the new feed straight away but their starting to feel more at home.
Cat and I have spent the last two months clearing buildings and land ready to build the stables and arena and Pete has chopped down lots of trees but still theres lots to go. We also opened a shop in Popovo so time has to be shared there as well. Now we're here expect more posts!!

training

well I spent a couple of hours moving the horses from the field back on to the livery yard. Free decided the horsebox was the most frightning thing he'd ever seen in his life and angel ran off to the other side of the field to hide. So i had to chase her around until she decided to cooperate.
All the horses were pleased to be back and I decided to make the most of the indoor areana to get some much needed schooling started. Caitlan and Free worked on their parelli level one exercises. Free has learned to follow, move away and halt on direction without using a rope. They also worked on his free jumping, top of the wings, not bad for a baby.
Lolly started his parelli training and did very well with his following and halting. Bee and angel had a jumping lesson with caitlan and her friend connor. Pete and I hacked spook and baby up to the local pond to practice their road work in heavy traffic. Pretty good day all round.

equine facillitated learning

Just realised some people will have no idea what my horses do. Through exercises and interaction with the horses, people can learn about confidence, body language, positive social demenour, independence, asertiveness, cooperation and lots more. It is ideal for management training, adolecents with behavioural problems, autism, depression and lots of other people too. In fact anyone wanting to build self esteem and social skills would benifit. Currently only spook and bee are trained to perform the exercises but the other four are also in training. it takes quite a long time to train the horses to be safe to use and not all personalities are suited to the job. Our Baby will unfortunately never be suitable although he is great for normal riding lessons. The horses that can do it have to be very gentle and willing with no sign of impatience or it can be off putting to the learner.
so to have another one showing potential is great.
the weathers improved now, the sun is shining finally so i think a spot of showjump building could be just the thing for this afternoon.